Getting lost can be terrifying, frustrating, maddening and if done right absolutely amazing. We’ve all experienced that magical moment when you take a wrong turn and end up on the road less traveled. It’s like life saying, “Hey, here’s an adventure you didn’t know you needed.” So let’s get going on a journey of accidental awesomeness.
It may seem foolish for someone with a really, really bad sense of direction to venture out solo. But, ironically, this is something I do with stunning regularity. I’ll head out in my Jeep driving along, belting out my favorite tunes, and suddenly, I’m on a detour through Narnia. I was once sent on a trip to the grocery store that was about a mile or two away from the house. The whole trip there and back should have taken me 15 minutes or so, including the time spent in the store. I returned home forty-five minutes later.
As long as I can remember I’ve been rather prone to getting lost. I’m kind of perpetually making U-turns, zigzags, and re-routing. I don’t know why it is, but the world just doesn’t seem to be laid out for me in the same way it is for other people. My wife for example, seems to have some sort of an internal atlas that guides her steadily on her way.
I’m also not great at asking for help. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I’m out and about driving or walking through the maze of aisles at the big box store. The only thing worse is when some poor person stops me and asks me to give them directions. Rather than just say, “I’m sorry, but it’s probably better if you ask someone else.” And then send them on their way, I instead attempt to guide them.
If I am forced to pull over and ask for help it usually goes something like this: I pull into a gas station or convenience store and the person behind the counter spins a yarn about a mystical shortcut only known to locals. Next thing I know, I’m even more lost and find myself cruising through a forest of talking trees and honking squirrels. Who knew getting lost could unlock the secrets of the wilderness?
I do try hard to not put myself in situations where I’ll be really stranded but it inevitably happens. As it did when my teenage daughter and I went on a trip to Italy. Alone. Yeah, you read that right. I was in a foreign country and responsible for a child, who unfortunately like me, was also cursed with a poor sense of direction. There we were though, two directionally challenged individuals trying to navigate the streets and alley ways of Rome, Florence and Venice.
My plan was to ask the people at the hotel from desk for directions each morning before we headed out. Then stop along the way at given intervals and ask there too. So we’d stop at the coffee place and make sure we were still headed in the right direction. Then the gelato place, and so on.
Seemed like a good plan, but you know how this turned out. We’d leave the hotel, walk down the street, and immediately get lost. It was so terribly frustrating. And after what seemed like asking the entire citizenry of Rome for directions that my daughter took over the navigating duties. She commandeered the map, oriented herself, located our destination and confidently declared; “We go that way.” I guess she isn’t that directionally challenged after all.
We still ended up getting lost quite a bit, but once we realized that it was something we could kind of lean into we stumbled onto some of the best adventures of the trip. We found an artisan who made Venetian masks my hand, we had dinner at a restaurant right out of Lady and the Tramp and we even went and got haircuts where we just had to gesture about what we’d like. Who needs a map when you’ve got a serendipity leading the way?
